How to find a machine shop?

[worldedit]

I always read that those who build custom lights get their parts made in machine shops. I wonder if there is something like that in Germany. Would be a dream come true to build my own small series of lights.
I know that personal and maschines are very expensive. Would it be affordable to have maybe 100 pieces made or is it cheaper to buy a small lathe myself?

 

[PhotonFanatic]

If the U.S. is any indicator, finding a good shop to make only 100 pieces might be a problem. But, assuming you do, then the cost could be anywhere from $25 to $60 for a reasonably simple 6061AL light.

While one could certainly buy a lathe for that amount, you would need to learn how to use it and would still need to buy material for the light bodies. Plus, the time to make 100 lights on your own manual lathe would be at least two hours for each light, in my opinion.

Add all that up and I'd opt to have the machine shop make them.

 

[worldedit]

25$ per light would be fine. 60 is a bit much.

An argument for buying a lathe is that would have a lathe afterwards
On the other hand at the machine shop the parts might turn out better and it wont be any trouble for me.

 

[precisionworks]

Would it be affordable to have maybe 100 pieces made or is it cheaper to buy a small lathe myself?

In the USA (and I would imagine in Europe also) there are small CNC shops that have three or four machining centers and a couple of employees. These shops are happy to do small production runs at a cost much lower than you could do on a manual lathe. You can request a quote for parts on this site: http://www.mfgquote.com/

Small lathes and mills aren't expensive ... but the tooling costs are often two or three or four times what you paid for the machine. And the learning curve is not instant. Buy the machines if you want to do your own prototype and one-off work, but have a small CNC shop make the production parts.